


Imposter Syndrome 2: The Iron Shepherds

by Xochiquetzl



Series: Imposter Syndrome [2]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Episode appropriate violence, Gen, Human Trafficking, Platonic Love, also a disturbing dream sequence, spoilers for c2 episodes 26-31, spoilers for c2e94
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-11
Updated: 2020-02-11
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:41:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22657177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Xochiquetzl/pseuds/Xochiquetzl
Summary: The Traveler's favorite cleric is taken prisoner by slavers.  Spoilers for Campaign 2 Episode 94.
Relationships: Jester Lavorre & The Traveler
Series: Imposter Syndrome [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1629964
Comments: 10
Kudos: 82





	Imposter Syndrome 2: The Iron Shepherds

**Author's Note:**

> Unbetaed, sorry! THE FEELS WON'T WAIT.

If I were a real god, I’d be better at this.

We’re in a dark basement, damp and full of cages and the smell of sweat, urine, blood, and feces. There are tormented humanoid bodies, and hot pokers, and other implements I don’t recognize. People cry, and whisper to each other, and whimper in fear.

Jester prays for me to help her escape, to free the prisoners in the cages, to stop the others from being tortured. I could remove Jester magically, take her away, but she wouldn’t want to leave without her Half-Orc and Aasimar friends. She prays for me to help them, too. I could magic them away with us, but then she’d want to go after the slavers, now that she’s seen what they are.

I agonize about how much I can do without revealing myself. An Oni wouldn’t be any match for an Archfey. The problem is whether Jester would know that this was fey magic rather than god magic.

She’s a clever girl. If I reveal myself to her incorrectly and she loses her faith, would I cripple her magic? I could make her a new warlock, but a new warlock wouldn’t be much use against all those armed people led by an Oni. She might die.

Jester sits in her cage, small and frightened, tears falling down her cheeks. If someone lays a hand on my Jester, I’ll risk it. I’ll reveal myself. They’ll be dead before they realize what happened.

Jester prays, and I sit beside her, invisible, and do not answer. I don’t know what I could say.

* * *

The Oni, Lorenzo. I hate him as I’ve never hated before. I hate his tough blue skin. I hate his eyes. I hate the snorting sounds he makes when he eats. I hate every inch of him.

My only emotion when I strangled Vax’ildan was curiosity. I didn’t even do the boy any lasting harm! He came back, just as he said he would.

I wouldn’t be so dispassionate if I strangled Lorenzo.

I give Lorenzo nightmares. In his dreams, he’s the one in the cage. He’s the one tortured with hot irons. They tear off his limbs with their bare hands and wipe the blood and gore on his ugly face. They cut off his fingers and his tongue so he cannot cast, and laugh at his attempts. On the day he roasts and eats a small child, in his dreams I give him to Hags to do with as they wish, on the condition that it’s unpleasant. They slowly cut off pieces of him and roast them over a fire and eat them. He weeps in his cage and watches them eat. Lorenzo tosses and turns and cries out in the night, but he doesn’t wake until morning. I won’t give him that reprieve.

Also, I curse him so he cannot achieve sexual pleasure. This is trite and petty and ridiculous of me, and I do it without shame. I laugh at him when he tries, all lumbering and fumbling and flaccid ridiculousness, although he cannot hear me.

Jester prays to me, and I go back to sit silently beside her cage while Lorenzo tosses and turns. On the wet ground, in the dark, in the smell of sweat and urine and fear.

* * *

I work the front desk of the Landlocked Lady so I can tell the two Humans and the Firbolg and the Goblin—Jester's friends—to listen carefully at the Mardun’s. I hint. Advise.

The desk is heavy wood, and there’s flocked wallpaper and new smells, mostly pleasant ones. I hear soft laughter behind the walls, and sometimes other sounds as well—humanoids rutting, mostly. It’s clean and dry. I’ve never patronized a brothel before. I wonder why not? I enjoy new experiences.

And then, instead of going upstairs to engage in the ludicrous friction of bodies like the goblin girl suggested with her hand gesture, like I’d intended, I sit silent and invisible among the cages in the dark. Next to Jester.

What am I doing? I used to be a creature without limitations, without bonds or obligations. Now it’s as if I were a prisoner myself.

Is this love?

I don’t think I like it.

* * *

Jester looks up in the dark, weeping. Tears stain her beautiful blue face. “Traveler, why don’t you come? Did I do something to make you angry? Why don’t you like me anymore? I promise if you give me another chance I’ll do better!”

I curl up on myself on the damp ground, like the ones in cages, and weep. She cannot hear me.

Her Half-Orc friend tries to comfort her, his voice a soft rumble, but she’s not listening. “Traveler, why don’t you come?”

* * *

What I need is more worshipers.

Jester’s faith is fading a little, and I don’t blame her. I can’t use the hit of her belief to do the kind of magic I need to do so as not to break her faith while breaking her out. I’m not strong enough yet.

If I had more worshipers, I could be more the god that Jester deserves. The kind of god who could wave a hand and make this situation go away! I would be strong and powerful, not sitting on the cold, wet floor next to my cleric, invisible, saying nothing because I don’t know what to say.

There’s a glowing red light, an ugly hiss, a burning smell. A child screams and cries for its mother, and Jester cries, and prays, and I stand. I can’t bear it. I can’t bear it!

And then I know that they’re coming. Her friends.

They’re coming. Not now, but soon.

* * *

I watched the battle with great interest and satisfaction, invisibly guarding the stairs to the cage with my unconscious Jester in it. They won—I’ve decided her friends are worthy of her, now—and found her and her two friends.

I was so relieved and grimly satisfied and so many other emotions… and then Jester wrote in her sketchbook, “Why didn’t you come?”

I have no idea how to answer.

* * *

I watch Jester’s temple pranks with both the deepest pride and concern. After her narrow escape from the Platinum House, I realize I have to talk to her.

Jester sits on her bed with her sketchbook on her lap. I sit next to her. I'm uncomfortably reminded of sitting next to her cage, but she can see me. I displace weight, and the bed makes a soft sound. The bed smells like fresh laundry, and Jester is clean.

“Hi,” she says, shy and awkward. “Did... did you see what I did?”

I reassure her, “I did.”

“Do you like me again?” Her eyes are sad and vulnerable. She sounds like a lost child, talking to an unworthy parent, and it breaks my heart.

“I was…” It’s hard to find the words. “...never disappointed in the first place, Jester.”

And then she asks the question I dreaded, but knew that she would ask. “Why didn’t you come?”

The best answer is the truth. “I did.”

“I didn’t see you.”

No. No, you didn’t. “You don’t need to see me to know that I’m with you.” That answer feels like it’s not enough, so I add, “You’re free now.”

"Yeah." And then the lonely, frightened child is back in her voice, her eyes. “Promise you won’t leave.”

As an Archfey, I am a creature bound by my word. I cannot lie to her with a reassuring false promise, so I give her my true oath. “As long as you continue to be that wonderful little seed of joy and chaos in the world, I’ll be walking behind you the entire time.”

“If things had gotten really bad, though, you would have stepped in, right? You wouldn’t let something really bad happen.”

It breaks my heart to be so inadequate for her. “Not… within my power, no.”

“Okay.”

I think Jester needs a change of topic. I know I do. “I do appreciate your artwork.”

She laughs. “I think he looks better now.”

“You’re improving.” 

She giggles.

I want to be the god she deserves, strong and powerful, so I say, “Keep meeting new people. Tell them of what… what _we’ve_ accomplished. We want more friends, don’t we?”

“So many!”

And then I asked to see the Krin relic. It’s something new, a type of magic I’ve never seen, and I _love_ new things and new experiences.

I think I need some comfort, too, but this—my Jester, the pleasure of seeing something new—will do.

**Author's Note:**

> All of these episodes feel so different after c2e94!
> 
> Also, I feel like I should apologize for the dream sequence, but Artagan insists that Lorenzo deserved it. ;)


End file.
